Chapin v. Brown
Chapin v. Brown
Opinion of the Court
On August 15, 1887, the plaintiffs and ' the defendant were copartners doing business in the firm name of Sugar Pine Mill and Lumber Company. Their business was that of manufacturing and selling lumber. They owned one hundred and sixty acres of timber land, upon or near which they had built a sawmill. On August 15, 1887, a written contract between the copartnership and two of its individual members, namely, Chapin and the defendant Brown, was executed, by which the copartnership agreed to sell to Chapin and Brown, and the latter agreed to purchase, all the lumber to be sawed from the timber then standing or fallen on the said one hundred and sixty acres of land, “or that may be sawed in the mill of the said parties of the first
The object of this action is to dissolve the Sugar Pine Mill and Lumber Company, to compel an accounting between its members, and especially between the copartnership and the defendant, who, it is alleged, owes the concern a balance of $3,090 for lumber delivered to the North Fork Lumber Company during the year 1890,. under the contract first above mentioned, called the “purchasing contract.” The' court found him to be individually responsible on that contract, and that he was indebted on that account to the other members of the company as follows: To Charles Peckinpagh, $427.45; to T. E. Peckinpagh, $471.85; to J. E. Chapin, $483.80—amount-ing to $1,383.18; and consequently that he was indebted to the. copartnership (of which he was an equal member) in the sum of $1,844.14. The judgment was in accordance with this finding. The defendant appeals from the judgment and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.
1. The appellant contends that there was a novation of the purchasing contract by which the assignees of portions thereof were substituted for the original contractors (Brown and Chapin) by consent of the Sugar Pine Mill and Lumber Company, and therefore that appellant is not individually liable) as found by the court. It is not claimed, however, that there was any evidence of such novation, or consent thereto, by the Sugar Pine Mill and Lumber Company, other than the facts that the lumber was delivered to and paid for (so far as payments were made) by the North Fork Lumber Company, as constituted at the times of such delivery and payments. Brown never assigned all his interest in the purchasing contract, but remained a member of the North Fork Lumber Company during all its transactions with the Sugar Pine Mill and Lumber Company. Nor is there any evidence that the latter company ever agreed or consented to discharge him or Chapin from their obligation on that contract, to accept Bartram or Ellis in their stead for any part of such obligation. Ño objec
2. The only other point requiring consideration arises on the following additional facts: During the year 1890, while Charles Peckinpagh was doing the sawing for the North Fork Lumber Company, as aforesaid, he and a Mrs. Bearden sold and delivered to the North Fork Lumber Company a lot of logs cut from other lands than the one hundred and sixty acres belonging to the Sugar Pine Mill and Lumber Company, and to which the latter company held no title. These logs were sawed by Charles Peckinpagh during 1890, while employed by the North Fork Lumber Company, as aforesaid, and produced 683,923 feet of lumber, which was piled in the mill-yard, and thence removed by the North Fork Lumber Company.' The evidence tends to prove that these logs were sawed with the knowledge and consent of the plaintiffs, and with an understanding between plaintiffs and the North Fork Lumber Company that the latter was to" pay the Sugar Pine Mill and Lumber Company, for the use of their mill in sawing those logs, fifty cents per thousand feet; and it appears that a large portion of the lumber sawed from those logs must have entered into the estimate of the 1,030,000 feet alleged and found to have been delivered to defendant in 1890, under the contract set out in the complaint. The appellant contends that the lumber produced from those logs purchased by the North Fork Lumber Company never was the property of the Sugar Pine Mill and Lumber Company, and therefore could not have been sold or delivered as such, under the contract set out in the complaint, and that the Sugar Pine Mill and Lumber Company were entitled to charge only for the use of the mill in sawing those logs at the agreed price of fifty cents per thousand instead of $3 per thousand, which they were to receive for the lumber sawed from timber taken from the land of the Sugar Pine Mill and Lumber Company. Thus
We concur: Haynes, C.; Belcher, C.
For the reasons given in the foregoing opinion the judgment and order appealed from are affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- CHAPIN v. BROWN
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Partnership—Accounting—Novation.—A Lumber Firm Agreed with two of its members to sell them sawed lumber at a certain price. The two members formed a new firm, and one of them sold his interest in the contract to the other, and the latter sold interests therein to two strangers. The old firm continued to sell to the purchasing concern under the agreement, and to receive payment therefrom, without' regard to its personnel, the bills being in all instances made out in the name of the purchasing concern. There was no evidence of any agreement to release the original contractors. Held, that there was no novation, and the lumber firm could sue one of the purchasing members for an accounting without joining his new associates in the purchasing contract.